The Renaissance in Italy (Chapter 13 Section 2)

The
Renaissance
in Italy

Chapter 13 Section 2

The Prince

• Florentine Niccolo Machiavelli

• 1469-1527

• Diplomat for 14 years

• Studied ancient roman history

• Used his experiences to write book

• A guide to rulers on how to gain and maintain

power

The Prince

• “Here the question arises: is it better to be loved than

feared, or vice versa? I don’t doubt that every prince
would like to be both: but since it is hard to
accommodate these qualities, if you have to make a
choice, to be feared is much safer than to be loved. For
it is a good general rule about men, that they are
ungrateful, fickle, liars and deceivers, fearful of danger
and greedy for gain. While you serve their welfare, they
are all yours, offering their blood, their belongings, their
lives, and their children’s lives, as we noted above, so
long as the danger is remote. But when the danger is
close at hand, they turn against you. Then any prince
who has relied on their words and has made no other
preparations will come to grief; because friendships that
are bought at a price, and not with greatness and
nobility of soul, may be paid for but they are not
acquired and they cannot be used in time of need.”

The Prince

• “People are less concerned with offending a man who

makes himself loved than one who makes himself loved
than one who makes himself feared: the reason is that
love is a link of obligation which men, because they are
rotten, will break any time they think doing so serves
their advantage; but fear involves dread of punishment,
from which they can never escape. Still a prince should
make himself feared in such a way that, even if he gets
no love, he gets no hate either; because it is perfectly
possible to be feared and not hated, and this will be the
result if only the prince will keep his hands off the
property of his subjects or citizens, and off their women.
When he does have to shed blood, he should be sure to
have a strong justification and manifest (make clear)
cause; but above all, he should not confiscate people’s
property, because men are quicker to forget the death
of a father than the loss of a patrimony (property or
inheritance).”

The Prince

• “Besides, pretexts (excuses, fake reasons) for

confiscation are always plentiful; it never fails that
a prince who starts living by plunder can find
reasons to rob someone else…Returning to the
question of being feared or loved, I conclude that
since men love at their own inclination but can be
made to fear at the inclination of the prince, a
shrewd (clever) prince will lay his foundations on
what is under his own control, not on what is
controlled by others”

• Why do you think it is better for a prince

to be feared than to be loved?

The Renaissance in the North

• 1455 Printing Revolution

• Johann Gutenberg (Germany)
• Printing press with movable type
• Printed a Christian Bible
• Only few thousand books in all

of Europe before printing press

• COPIED BY HAND!

• By 1500s 15-20 million produced
• Cheaper and easier than hand-

written

• More books available, more

people learned to read

Printing Revolution

• Readers gained knowledge
• Medicine, law, mining, etc.
• Exposed educated Europeans to

new ideas and new places

• Shakespeare expressed universal

themes in everyday realistic settings

• Romeo and Juliette
• Hamlet

• More than 1,700 words appeared

for the first time in Shakespeare’s
writing.

Shakespeare’s Globe Theater

• 1599 in London
• Wrote 20 of his plays to be

performed here

• Seats 3,000 people
• Stage is 40 feet wide
• 1613 burnt down due to onstage

cannon fire during “Henry VIII” Play

• Ignited the roof and destroyed the

building

• Rebuilt in 1997 as exact replica